The
southern Appalachian Mountains:
including western North and South Carolina, northern Georgia and
Alabama,
southwest Virginia, and the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee, Kentucky,
and
northern Alabama.Current

Distributed
across the United States,
but concentrated in eastern Oklahoma. The eastern Cherokee still
maintain
their reservation in western North Carolina. The Northern Cherokee
Nation
of the Old Louisiana Territory has almost 12,000 members and has been
recognized
by the State of Missouri. Other groups of Cherokee, like the 2,500
members
of the North Alabama Cherokee, are located in Arkansas, Georgia, and
Alabama
but currently do not have federal recognition.

Population

European
epidemics introduced into the
southeastern United States in 1540 by the Desoto expedition are
estimated
to have killed at least 75% of the original native population. How much
the Cherokee suffered from this disaster in unknown, but their
population
in 1674 was about 50,000. A series of smallpox epidemics (1729, 1738,
and
1753) cut this in half, and it remained fairly stable at about 25,000
until
their removal to Oklahoma during the 1830s. The American Civil War was
the next disaster and cost the Cherokee 25% of their population. No
other
group of Americans, red or white, suffered as severely during this
conflict.
The 1990 census listed 308,132 persons (15,000 full-blood) who
identified
themselves as Cherokee. Of these, 95,435 were concentrated in eastern
Oklahoma
while 10,114 eastern Cherokee lived on or near the North Carolina
reservation.
Cherokee tribal governments have fairly liberal membership standards,
and
some estimates exceed 370,000, which would make the Cherokee the
largest
Native American group in the United States.

Iroquian,
but Cherokee differs significantly
from other Iroquian languages.

Sub-tribes

The
Cherokee have been divided into
three divisions depending on location and dialect (east to west):

Lower,
Middle, and Over-the-Hill.

Other
distinct bands were:

Atali,
Chickamauga, Etali, Onnontiogg,
and Qualia.

Three
Cherokee groups are currently
federally recognized:

Cherokee
Nation of Oklahoma, United
Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians (Oklahoma), and the Eastern Band of
Cherokee Indians (North Carolina). The Echota Cherokee are recognized
only
by the state of Alabama.

Villages

The
number following a particular name
indicates more than one of the same name.

According
to some accounts, before the
coming of the Europeans, the Cherokee were forced to migrate to the
southern
Appalachians from the northwest after a defeat at the hands of the
Iroquois
and Delaware. Some Delaware traditions also support this, but the
Iroquois
have no memories of such a conflict. While there is probably some
historical
basis, it is difficult to imagine a tribe as large and powerful as the
Cherokee being forced to move anywhere, although they may have lost
some
territory in the north to the Susquehannock, Erie, or Delaware.
Considering
their language differences with other Iroquian groups, the Cherokee
probably
have been a distinct group for a considerable period. It seems more
reasonable
to assume that the Cherokee had occupied their mountain homeland for a
long time before the arrival of the Europeans.

At
the time of contact, the Cherokee
were a settled, agricultural people living in approximately 200 fairly,
large villages. The typical Cherokee town consisted of 30 to 60 houses
and a large council house. Homes were usually wattle and daub, a
circular
framework interwoven with branches (like an upside-down basket) and
plastered
with mud. The entire structure was partially sunken into ground. In
later
periods, log cabins (one door with smoke hole in the bark covered roof)
became the general rule. The large council houses were frequently
located
on mounds from the earlier Mississippian culture, although the Cherokee
themselves did not build mounds during the historic period. Used for
councils,
general meetings, and religious ceremonies, the council houses were
also
the site of the sacred fire, which the Cherokee had kept burning from
time
immemorial.

Like
other Iroquian peoples, kinship
and membership in seven matriarchal clans were determined through the
mother,
although the women's role never achieved the importance that it enjoyed
among the Iroquois League in New York. In most ways, the Cherokee more
closely resembled the Creek and other southeastern tribes, including
the
celebration of the Busk, or Green Corn festival. Agriculture relied
heavily
on the "three sisters" (corn, beans, and squash), supplemented by
hunting
and the gathering of wild plants. Cherokee villages were largely
independent
in daily matters, with the whole tribe only coming together for
ceremonies
or times of war. Leadership was divided according the circumstances:
"red"
chiefs during war and "white" chiefs in times of peace.

The
Cherokee were the only Iroquian
speaking member of the five Civilized Tribes of the southeast United
States.
Although it is difficult to ascertain what privilege in treatment they
received for being classified as "civilized", their achievements were
remarkable
and accomplished almost entirely through their own efforts. During the
early 1800s, the Cherokee adopted their government to a written
constitution.
They established their own courts and schools, and achieved a standard
of living that was the envy of their white neighbors. Particularly
noteworthy
was the invention of written language by Sequoyah (George Gist) in
1821.
Utilizing an ingenious alphabet of 86 characters, almost the entire
Cherokee
Nation became literate within a few years. A Cherokee newspaper, the
Phoenix,
began publication in the native language in February, 1828. Prominent
Cherokees
are too numerous to list but include Senator Robert Owen and Will
Rogers.
Despite all they have endured, the Cherokee level of education and
living
standard ranks among the highest of all Native American tribes.

History

The
Desoto expedition is believed to
have made the first European contact in 1540 when they met the
"Chalaque"
on the Tennessee River. Although Pardo revisited the area in 1566 and
the
Spanish maintained a small mining and smelting operation in the area
until
1690, the Cherokee's location in the interior mountains kept them
relatively
isolated until after the settlement of Virginia in 1609. By 1629
English
traders had worked their way west into the Appalachians and met the
Cherokee.
Contact became continuous with the founding of the Carolina colonies.
Virginian
Abraham Wood tried unsuccessfully to maintain his trade monopoly with
the
Cherokee and sent two men, James Needham and Gabriel Arthur, to the
Cherokee
Overhill capital at Echota in 1673, but the following year a group of
Cherokee
met with rival Carolina traders along the upper Savannah River. A
treaty
with South Carolina followed in 1684 beginning a steady trade in
deerskins
and Indian slaves. Although contact was limited initially to white
traders,
important changes began to occur within the Cherokee as a result.
Leadership
shifted from priest to warrior, and warriors became hunters for profit.

Increasing
dependence on trade goods
also drew the Cherokee to the British as allies in their wars against
the
French and Spanish between 1689 and 1763. Cherokee relations with their
neighbors were not always friendly before contact. They raided Spanish
settlements in Florida during 1673 and fought the coastal tribes of the
Carolinas, but European trade and competition aggravated these
rivalries
and destabilized the region. By 1680 most of the tribes had gotten
their
first firearms, and the Cherokee had fortified their larger villages.
Constant
fighting with the Catawba erupted in the east followed by a growing
friction
with the Creek and Choctaw to the south. To the west there was a
traditional
hostility with the Chickasaw (also a British ally). To the north, the
struggle
between the French, Dutch, and English in the fur trade started the
Beaver
Wars and a period of conquest by the Iroquois League which spread
across
the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley.

In
1660 large groups of Shawnee were
driven south by the Iroquois. The Cherokee allowed one group to settle
in South Carolina and serve as a buffer between them and the Catawba.
Other
Shawnee were permitted to locate in the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee
for
a similar purpose against the Chickasaw. This self-serving hospitality
was to earn the Cherokee nothing but grief. The Iroquois never forgot
an
enemy, and the Shawnee presence brought them south in raids against
both
the Shawnee and the Cherokee. Meanwhile, the Shawnee were becoming
dangerous.
In 1692 a Shawnee raid to capture slaves for trade with the English
destroyed
a major Cherokee village while its warriors were absent on a winter
hunt.
While both tribes still had common enemies (Iroquois, Catawba , and
Chickasaw),
this treachery destroyed any trust or friendship that had existed
between
the Cherokee and Shawnee. The following year a Cherokee delegation
visited
Charles town demanding more firearms to fight their enemies. The
situation
had become so dangerous by 1705 that North Carolina was urging South
Carolina
to curtail the trade in Native American slaves or face a massive
uprising.

Actually,
warfare between allies and
trading partners did not serve British interests, so they encouraged
the
peace that was finally arranged between the Cherokee and Iroquois in
1706.
This respite allowed Cherokee warriors in 1708 to join the Catawba and
Alibamu in an attack against the Mobile in southern Mississippi who
were
serving as middlemen for the new French trading posts in the region.
300
Cherokee warriors also served with the South Carolina army of Colonel
James
Moore against the Tuscarora in 1713, although some of the Lower
Cherokee
joined the Yamasee during the general uprising against the Carolinas in
1715. Peaceful relations resumed afterwards, and the Cherokee received
a large quantity of guns and ammunition in exchange for their
allegiance.
However, the peace with the Iroquois collapsed when the League
attempted
to dominate the Cherokee through the Covenant Chain (See Iroquois).
When
the Cherokee refused to comply with Iroquois demands, the raiding
resumed.

Never
forgetting the treachery of the
Shawnee treachery in 1692, the Cherokee decided to rid themselves of
their
now unwelcome guests. To do this, they allied with the Chickasaw
(enemies
with similar feelings about the Shawnee) to inflict a major defeat in
1715
on the Shawnee of the Cumberland Basin. The Chickasaw alliance and war
with the Shawnee brought the Cherokee to the attention of the French
and
their Algonquin allies north of the Ohio River. The result was a steady
stream of war parties directed south against them. The Cherokee were in
the dubious position of fighting the pro British Iroquois and the pro
French
Algonquin at the same time, but they held their own, despite
devastating
smallpox epidemics in 1738 and 1753 which killed almost half of them.
The
epidemics were also devastating to the Cherokee priests who, unable to
cure the disease, lost most of their remaining influence. A second
Chickasaw
alliance in 1745 forced the remaining Shawnee north across the Ohio
River
and then succeeded in defeating the French allied Choctaw in 1750.

Meanwhile,
a treaty, signed in 1721
and thought to be the first land cession by the Cherokee, regulated
trade
and established a boundary between the Cherokee and the British
settlements.
Despite this agreement, settlement from the Carolinas was rapidly
invading
the lands of the Lower Cherokee east of the Appalachians and tempting
the
Cherokee to switch their loyalty to the French. This option had become
available to them after the French made peace with the Alibamu and
built
a trading post at Fort Toulouse near Montgomery, Alabama in 1717.
French
traders were also reaching the Overhill Cherokee by following the
Cumberland
River from its mouth near the Ohio. The Chickasaw, however, still made
travel on the Tennessee River by the French far too dangerous. All of
this
trade could easily have tied the Cherokee to the French if they had
been
able to compete with the British, but they could not. French goods were
generally inferior and more expensive, and the British had the naval
power
to blockade Canada in times of war (King George's War 1744-48) and halt
the supply.

More
important, the British valued their
alliance with the Cherokee and worked hard to maintain it. Colonel
George
Chicken was sent by the British government in 1725 to regulate Cherokee
trade and prevent the possibility of their turning to the French. He
was
followed by Sir Alexander Cuming who visited the major Cherokee towns
and
convinced them to select a single chief to represent them with the
British.
Cuming even escorted a Cherokee delegation to England for an audience
with
George II. In the treaty signed at Charleston in 1743, the Cherokee not
only made peace with the Catawba, but promised to trade only with the
British.
Two years later, the Cherokee also concluded a peace with the Wyandot
(an
important French ally north of the Ohio), only to learn that the
Wyandot
and other French tribes were secretly plotting to break free from the
French
trade monopoly. At this point, the Cherokee apparently decided the
French
would not be an improvement over the British. While the French were
permitted
to build a trading post in their homeland, this was a close as the
Cherokee
ever came to changing sides. However, the British still had serious
doubts
about Cherokee loyalty.

Loss
of Land; Wars to Acquire New Land

Pressed
to acquire new land to compensate
for their growing loses to white settlement, the Cherokee and Creek
were
almost forced into a war with each other (1752-55). At stake was
control
of a hunting territory in northern Georgia which the two tribes had
formerly
shared. After the decisive battle at Taliwa (1755), the Cherokee
emerged
as the winner, and this new territory probably allowed them to support
the British at the outbreak of the French and Indian War (1755-63).
Although
the Cherokee signed a treaty in 1754 confirming their alliance and
allowing
the construction of British forts in their territory to defend the
colonies,
the lingering suspicion remained they were sympathetic to the French.
Incidents
between Cherokee and white settlers during 1758 were hastily covered
over
by another treaty, but the cooperation collapsed in 1759. Almost 100
Cherokee
accompanying a Virginia expedition against the Ohio Shawnee lost their
provisions while crossing a river and were abandoned by their white
"allies."
Angry at this treatment, the Cherokee helped themselves to some of the
Virginians' horses and were attacked. After killing more than twenty
Cherokee,
the Virginians scalped and mutilated the bodies. They later collected a
bounty for the scalps.

While
their chiefs rushed to arrange
restitution to "cover the dead," outraged Cherokee warriors launched a
series of retaliatory raids against outlying settlements. Blaming
French
intrigue rather than Virginia treachery, Governor Littleton of South
Carolina
raised an 1,100 man army and marched on the lower Cherokee settlements.
Stunned to discover the British were attacking them, the lower Cherokee
chiefs quickly agreed to peace. Two warriors accused of murder were
handed
over for execution, and 29 chiefs were surrendered as hostages at Fort
Prince George on British suspicions of their hostile intentions.
Satisfied
with these arrangements, Littleton left, but the Cherokee were furious.
His army had barely reached Charleston when the Cherokee War (1760-62)
exploded with full fury. Settlers were massacred at Long Canes, and a
militia
unit was mauled near Broad River. In February of 1760, the Cherokee
attacked
Fort Prince George in attempt to free the hostages, killing the fort's
commander from ambush. The fort's new commander promptly executed the
hostages
and fought off the assault Fort 96 also withstood an attack, but lesser
outposts were not so fortunate, and the war quickly expanded beyond
Littleton's
resources.

He
appealed for help from Lord Jeffrey
Amherst, the British commander in North America (who despised Indians,
friend or foe). With the French defeated, the entire British army in
North
America was available for use against the Cherokee. In May Amherst sent
1,200 Highlanders and Royals under Colonel Montgomery to the area.
Montgomery's
approach to Indian warfare: no male prisoners, but spare women and
small
children. The war did not go well for the British. After burning
several
abandoned lower Cherokee towns, Montgomery met with ambush and defeat
when
he attempted to push deeper into Cherokee territory. After a long
siege,
Fort Loudon in eastern Tennessee fell during August, and the garrison
was
massacred. In early 1761, the incompetent Montgomery was replaced by
Colonel
James Grant. Ignoring Cherokee attempts to make peace, Grant enlisted
the
help of Catawba scouts in June, and soon afterwards his 2,600 man army
captured 15 middle Cherokee towns and destroyed the food the Cherokee
needed
for the coming winter.

Faced with starvation if the war continued, the
Cherokee signed a treaty with the South Carolina in September that
ceded
most of their eastern lands in the Carolinas. A second treaty was
signed
with Virginia in November. The Cherokee maintained their part of the
agreement
and did not participate in the Pontiac uprising (1763) but did suffer
another
smallpox epidemic that year. They still benefited somewhat when the
rebellion
forced the stunned British government to temporarily halt all new
settlement
west of the Appalachians. Within a few years, colonial demands forced
the
British to reverse this policy, and begin negotiations with the
Iroquois.
Land cessions by the Iroquois at the Fort Stanwix (1768) opened large
sections
west of the Appalachians to settlement. Their generosity also included
land in West Virginia, eastern Tennessee and Kentucky claimed by the
Cherokee,
and this forced the British to negotiate new boundaries with the
Cherokee
at the Treaty of Hard Labor (1768).

As
white settlers poured across the
mountains, the Cherokee tried once again to compensate themselves with
territory taken by war with a neighboring tribe. This time their
intended
victim was the Chickasaw, but this was a mistake. Anyone who tried to
take
something from the Chickasaw regretted it, if he survived. After eleven
years of sporadic warfare ended with a major defeat at Chickasaw
Oldfields
(1769), the Cherokee gave up and began to explore the possibility of
new
alliances to resist the whites. Both the Cherokee and Creek attended
the
1770 and 1771 meetings with the Ohio tribes at Sciota but did not
participate
in Lord Dunnmore's War (1773-74) because the disputed territory was not
theirs.

On
the eve of the American Revolution, the British government scrambled
to appease the colonists and negotiate treaties with the Cherokee
ceding
land already taken from them by white settlers. To this end, all means,
including outright bribery and extortion, were employed: Lochaber
Treaty
(1770); and the Augusta Treaty (1773) ceding 2 million acres in Georgia
to pay for debts to white traders. For the same reasons as the Iroquois
cession of Ohio in 1768, the Cherokee tried to protect their homeland
from
white settlement by selling land they did not really control. In the
Watonga
Treaty (1774) and the Overhill Cherokee Treaty (Sycamore Shoals)
(1775),
they sold all of eastern and central Kentucky to the Transylvania Land
Company (Henderson Purchase).

Despite
the fact that these agreements
were a clear violation of existing British law, they were used later to
justify the American takeover of the region. The Shawnee also claimed
these
lands but, of course, were never consulted. With the Iroquois selling
the
Shawnee lands north of the Ohio, and the Cherokee selling the Shawnee
lands
south, where could they go? Not surprisingly, the Shawnee stayed and
fought
the Americans for 40 years. Both the Cherokee and Iroquois were fully
aware
of the problem they were creating. After he had signed, a Cherokee
chief
reputedly took Daniel Boone aside to say, "We have sold you much fine
land,
but I am afraid you will have trouble if you try to live there."

Not
all of the Cherokee honored these
agreements. Cui Canacina (Dragging Canoe) and the Chickamauga refused
and
kept raiding the new settlements. At the outbreak of the Revolution,
the
Cherokee received requests from the Mohawk, Shawnee, and Ottawa to join
them against the Americans, but the majority of the Cherokee decided to
remain neutral in the white man's war. The Chickamauga, however, were
at
war with the Americans and formed an alliance with the Shawnee. Both
tribes
had the support of British Indian agents who were still living among
them
(often with native wives) and arranging trade. During 1775 the British
began to supply large amounts of guns and ammunition and offer bounties
for American scalps. In July, 1776, 700 Chickamauga attacked two
American
forts in North Carolina: Eaton's Station and Ft. Watauga. Both assaults
failed, but the raids set off a series of attacks by other Cherokee and
the Upper Creek on frontier settlements in Tennessee and Alabama.

After
the US Revolutionary War

The
frontier militia organized in response
made little effort to distinguish between hostile and neutral Cherokee,
except to notice that neutrals were easier to find. During September
the
Americans destroyed more than 36 Cherokee towns killing every man,
woman
and child they could find. Unable to resist, the Cherokee in 1777 asked
for peace. The Treaties of DeWitt's Corner (May) and Long Island (or
Holston)
(July) were signed at gunpoint and forced the Cherokee to cede almost
all
of their remaining land in the Carolinas. Although this brought peace
for
two years, the Chickamauga remained hostile and renewed their attacks
against
western settlements in Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky during 1780.
After
more fighting, the second Treaty of Long Island of Holston (July 1781)
confirmed the 1777 cessions and then took more Cherokee land.

Through
all of this, the Chickamauga
fought on but were forced to retreat slowly northward, until by 1790
they
had joined forces with the Shawnee in Ohio. After the initial Indian
victories
of Little Turtle's War (1790-94), most of the Ohio Chickamauga returned
south and settled near the Tennessee River in central Tennessee and
northern
Alabama. From here, they had the unofficial encouragement of the
Spanish
governments of Florida and Louisiana and began to attack nearby
American
settlements. One of these incidents almost killed a young Nashville
attorney/land
speculator named Andrew Jackson, which may explain his later attitude
regarding
the Cherokee.

Dragging
Canoe died in 1792, but a new
round of violence exploded that year with the American settlements in
central
Tennessee and northern Alabama. After two years of fighting with
Tennessee
militia, support from other Cherokee declined, and the Chickamauga's
resolve
began to weaken. Following the American victory at Fallen Timbers
(1794),
the last groups of the Ohio Chickamauga returned to Tennessee.
Meanwhile,
the Spanish government had decided to settle its border disputes with
the
United States by diplomatic means and ended its covert aid to the
Cherokee.
After a final battle near Muscle Shoals in Alabama, the Chickamauga
realized
it was impossible stop the Americans by themselves. By 1794 large
groups
of Chickamauga had started to cross the Mississippi and settle with the
Western Cherokee in Spanish Arkansas. The migration was complete by
1799,
and open warfare between the Cherokee and Americans ended.

The
Keetoowah (Western Cherokee or Old
Settlers) had their origin with a small group of pro French Cherokee
which
relocated to northern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri after the
French
defeat by the British in 1763. The Spanish welcomed them and granted
land.
Towards the end of the American Revolution in 1782, they were joined a
group of pro British Cherokee. With the migration of the Chickamauga
(1794-99),
the Keetoowah became formidable and a threat to the Osage who
originally
claimed the territory. Cherokee and Osage warfare was fairly common in
1803 when the United States gained control of the area through the
Louisiana
Purchase. With continued migration, the Western Cherokee steadily
gained
at the expense of the Osage, and by 1808 over 2,000 Cherokee were
established
in northern Arkansas.

The
Turkey Town treaty (1817) was the
first formal recognition of the Western Cherokee by the United States.
Under its terms, 4,000 Cherokee ceded their lands in Tennessee in
exchange
for a reservation with the Western Cherokee in northwest Arkansas. With
this new immigration during 1818-19, the number of Western Cherokee
swelled
to over 6,000. However, the Osage continued to object to the Cherokee
presence,
and the Americans were forced to build Fort Smith (1817) and Fort
Gibson
(1824) to maintain peace. White settlers of the Arkansas territory were
soon demanding the removal of both the Cherokee and Osage. In 1828 the
Western Cherokee agreed to exchange their Arkansas lands for a new
location
in Oklahoma. The boundaries were finally determined in 1833, although
it
took until 1835 to get the Osage to agree.

Prospered,
yet continuing treaties taking
new land

Meanwhile,
the Cherokee homeland in
the east was rapidly being whittled away by American settlement
reflected
by a series of treaties: Hopewell 1785; Holston 1791; Philadelphia
1794;
Tellico 1798, 1804, 1805, and 1806. The final cession of ten million
acres
in 1806 by Doublehead (Chuquilatague) outraged many of the Cherokee and
resulted in his assassination as a traitor by the faction led by Major
Ridge (Kahnungdatlageh -"the man who walks the mountain top"). A new,
mixed
blood leadership of Ridge and John Ross (Guwisguwi - blue eyes and 1/8
Cherokee) seized control determined not to yield any more of the
Cherokee
homeland while introducing major cultural changes. With a unity made
possible
by the departure of the more traditional Cherokee to Arkansas, in less
than 30 years the Cherokee underwent the most remarkable adaptation to
white culture of any Native American people. By 1817 the clan system of
government had been replaced by an elected tribal council. A new
capital
was established at New Echota in 1825, and a written constitution
modeled
after that of the United States was added two years later.

Many
Cherokee became prosperous farmers
with comfortable houses, beautiful cultivated fields, and large herds
of
livestock. Christian missionaries arrived by invitation, and Sequoia
invented
an alphabet that gave them a written language and overnight made most
of
the Cherokee literate. They published a newspaper, established a court
system, and built schools. An inventory of Cherokee property in 1826
revealed:
1,560 black slaves. 22,000 cattle, 7,600 horses, 46,000 swine, 2,500
sheep,
762 looms, 2,488 spinning wheels, 172 wagons, 2,942 plows, 10 sawmills,
31 grist mills, 62 blacksmith shops, 8 cotton machines, 18 schools, and
18 ferries. Although the poor Cherokee still lived in simple log
cabins,
Chief John Ross had a $10,000 house designed by a Philadelphia
architect.
In fact, many Cherokee were more prosperous and 'civilized' than their
increasingly envious white neighbors.

Although
the leadership of the eastern
Cherokee steadfastly maintained their independence and land base, they
felt it was important to reach an accommodation with the Americans.
They
refused Tecumseh's requests for Indian unity in 1811, ignored a call
for
war from the Red Stick Creek in 1813, and then fought as American
allies
during the Creek War (1813-14). 800 Cherokee under Major Ridge were
with
Jackson's army at Horseshoe Bend in 1814, and according one account, a
Cherokee warrior saved Jackson's life during the battle. If Jackson was
grateful, he never allowed it to show. At the Fort Jackson Treaty
ending
the war (1814), Jackson demanded huge land cessions from both the
Cherokee
and Creek. As allies, the Cherokee must have been stunned at this
treatment,
and reluctantly agreed only after a series of four treaties signed
during
1816 and 1817.

The
Cherokee government afterwards became
even more determined not to surrender any more land, but things were
moving
against them. In 1802 Cherokee land had been promised by the federal
government
to the state of Georgia which afterwards refused to recognize either
the
Cherokee Nation or its land claims. By 1822 Georgia was pressing
Congress
to end Cherokee title within its boundaries. $30,000 was eventually
appropriated
as payment but refused. Then bribery was attempted but exposed, and the
Cherokee responded with a law prescribing death for anyone selling land
to whites without permission.

With
the election of Jackson as president
in 1828, the Cherokee were in serious trouble. Gold was discovered that
year on Cherokee land in northern Georgia, and miners swarmed in.
Indian
removal to west of the Mississippi had been suggested as early as 1802
by Thomas Jefferson and recommended by James Monroe in his final
address
to Congress in 1825. With Jackson's full support, the Indian Removal
Act
was introduced in Congress in 1829. There it met serious opposition
from
Senators Daniel Webster and Henry Clay who were able to delay passage
until
1830. Meanwhile, Jackson refused to enforce the treaties which
protected
the Cherokee homeland from encroachment. During the two years following
his election, Georgia unilaterally extended its laws to Cherokee
territory,
dividing up Cherokee lands by lottery, and stripping the Cherokee of
legal
protection. Georgia citizens were free to kill, burn, and steal. With
the
only alternative a war which would result in annihilation, John Ross
decided
to fight for his people's rights in the United States courts.

Resettlement
to Oklahoma - Trail of
Tears

The
Cherokee won both cases brought
before the Supreme Court: Cherokee Nation vs Georgia (1831) and
Worcester
vs Georgia(1832), but the legal victories were useless. Jackson's
answer:
"Justice Marshall has made his decision. Let him enforce it." Without
federal
interference, Georgia and Tennessee began a reign of terror using
arrest,
murder and arson against the Cherokee. Ross was arrested, and the
offices
of the Cherokee Phoenix burned in May, 1834. The mansion of the
wealthiest
Cherokee, Joseph Vann, was confiscated by the Georgia militia, and the
Moravian mission and school was converted into a militia headquarters.
When Ross traveled to Washington to protest, Jackson refused to see
him.
Instead overtures were made to Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and
nephew
Elias Boudinot (Buck Oowatie), editor of the Phoenix (Cherokee
newspaper).
The hopelessness of the situation finally convinced these men to sign
the
Treaty of New Echota (December, 1835) surrendering the Cherokee
Nation's
homeland in exchange for $5,000,000, seven million acres in Oklahoma,
and
an agreement to remove within two years.

Known
as the Treaty Party (Ridgites),
only 350 of 17,000 Cherokee actually endorsed the agreement. Threatened
by violence from their own people, they and 2,000 family members
quickly
gathered their property and left for Oklahoma. The treaty was clearly a
fraud, and a petition of protest with 16,000 Cherokee signatures was
dispatched
to Washington to halt ratification. After violent debate, Jackson
succeeded
in pushing it through the Senate during May by the margin of a single
vote.
The Cherokee Nation was doomed. For the next two years, Ross tried
every
political and legal means to stop the removal, but failed. When the
deadline
arrived in May, 1838, 7,000 soldiers under General Winfield Scott
(virtually
the entire American Army) moved into the Cherokee homeland. The
Cherokee
found that their reward for 'taking the white man¹s road' was to be
driven from their homes at gunpoint. It was the beginning of the
Nunadautsun't
or 'the trail where we cried.' History would call it the Trail of Tears.

Forced
to abandon most of their property,
the Cherokee were herded into hastily built stockades at Rattlesnake
Springs
near Chattanooga. Little thought had been given to these, and in the
crowded
and unsanitary conditions, measles, whooping cough and dysentery took a
terrible toll throughout the summer. After most of the Cherokee had
been
collected, relocation by boat began in August, but drought had made
Tennessee
River unusable. At this point Cherokee desperation contributed to the
disaster.
Not wishing to remain until spring in the lethal conditions at
Rattlesnake
Springs, Ross petitioned the government to allow the Cherokee to manage
their own removal.

Permission
was delayed until October.
When it finally came, several large groups of Cherokee departed into
the
face of an approaching winter. They were marched west without adequate
shelter, provisions, or food. The soldiers were under orders to move
quickly
and did little to protect them from whites who attacked and robbed the
Cherokee of what little they had left. Two thirds were trapped in
southern
Illinois by ice on the Mississippi and forced to remain for a month
without
shelter or supplies. As many as 4,000, including the wife of John Ross,
died enroute. Many had to be left unburied beside the road.

Some
Cherokee avoided the removal. Under
the provisions of the 1817 and 1819 treaties, 400 Qualia of Chief
Yonaguska
who lived in North Carolina were United States citizens and owned their
land individually. Not members of the Cherokee Nation, they were not
subject
to removal and allowed to stay. Several hundred Cherokee escaped and
hid
in the mountains. The army used other Cherokee to hunt them. Tsali and
two of his sons were captured and executed after they had killed a
soldier
trying to capture them. In 1842 the army gave up the effort, and the
fugitive
Cherokee were allowed to remain in an "unofficial" status. Formal
recognition
came in 1848 when Congress agreed to recognize the Eastern Cherokee
provided
North Carolina would do likewise. Currently there are more than 8,000
Eastern
Cherokee who living in the mountains of western North Carolina. The
Echota
Cherokee Tribe in Alabama is another group descended from individual
Cherokee
landowners protected from removal by the 1817 and 1819 treaties.

Other
Removals to Oklahoma

At
the same time as the Trail of Tears,
another group of Cherokee was being forcibly removed to Oklahoma
...from
Texas. In 1807, after the Louisiana Purchase, the Spanish government
was
nervously watching the American expansion towards Texas and requested a
number of tribes to resettle in eastern Texas as a buffer against the
Americans.
The first Cherokee settlement in the region was at Lost Prairie in
1819,
and it received a land grant in 1822. After the successful revolt by
the
Texans in 1835, a treaty confirming the Cherokee title failed
ratification
in the Texas legislature during 1836 despite the strong support of
President
Sam Houston. White Texans pressed for the removal, and in July of 1839
three Texas regiments attacked the Cherokee of Chief Bowl and forced
them
across the Red River into Oklahoma. The irony of the Cherokee situation
in Oklahoma in 1839 should not be lost. No matter what course chosen:
war,
accommodation, surrender, or flight; their fate had been the same.

Of
the Five Civilized Tribes, the Creek,
Choctaw and Seminole received similar treatment during removal,
although
the Chickasaw had foreseen what was coming and prepared better.
Following
removal, all had major problems, but the Cherokee had the most bitter
internal
divisions. Gathered together for the first time in 50 years, the
Cherokee
in Oklahoma were ready for civil war during the spring of 1839. 6,000
Western
Cherokee (Old Settlers) from Arkansas and Texas had been living there
since
1828 and defending themselves from the Osage, Kiowa, Wichita, and
Comanche.
They had maintained their traditional government of three chiefs
without
written laws. Suddenly 14,000 Eastern Cherokee (New Settlers) arrived
in
their midst with an elaborate government, court system, and a written
constitution,
but the newcomers were bitterly divided between 2,000 Ridgites (Treaty
Party) and 12,000 Rossites who had just lost 4,000 of their people on
the
Trail of Tears.

Violence
was not long in coming. On
June 22, Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were murdered.
Stand
Watie, Boudinot's brother and Major Ridge's nephew, was the only leader
of the Treaty Party to escape. The assassinations effectively silenced
the Treaty Party, but the hatreds endured. This left only two
contending
groups: west and east. The Western Cherokee refused to accept any of
the
new changes, while the more numerous Eastern Cherokee considered
themselves
superior and would not compromise. The first meeting of these factions
failed to reach agreement. At a second meeting, Ross could only obtain
the signature of one western chief but proceeded anyway to organize a
government.
However, the majority of the western Cherokee and the Treaty Party
refused
to recognize it. For the next six years there was civil war over
borders
and jurisdiction.

The
situation became so bad that Congress
proposed dividing the Cherokee into two tribes. This was incentive
enough
for the Cherokee to set aside their differences and unite under the
Cherokee
Nation, an accomplishment recognized by treaty with the United States
in
1846. The wounds from removal and reunification never healed
completely,
but the Cherokee adjusted well enough to enjoy what they consider to
have
been their golden age during the 1850s. On the eve of the Civil War in
1861, the Cherokee Nation was controlled by a wealthy, mixed blood
minority
which owned black slaves and favored the South.

The
vast majority of the
Cherokee did not have slaves, lived simple lives and could have cared
less
about the white man's war, especially the Old Settlers. John Ross
leaned
towards the South, but mindful of the divisions within the Cherokee,
refused
the early offers by Albert Pike to join the Confederacy. When Union
soldiers
withdrew during the summer of 1861, the Confederate army occupied the
Indian
Territory. The Cherokee Nation voted to secede from the United States
in
August, 1861, and a formal treaty was signed at the Park Hill home of
John
Ross between the Cherokee Nation and the new Confederate government.
Four
years later, this agreement was to cost them very dearly.

Civil
War

Americans
are usually surprised to learn
that the Civil War was bitterly contested between the Native Americans
in Oklahoma. For the Cherokee, it was very much a war of brother
against
brother. 3,000 Cherokee (usually New Settlers) enlisted in the
Confederate
army while 1,000(Old Settlers) fought for the Union. In the east 400
North
Carolina Cherokee, virtually every able bodied man, served the South.
Cherokee
Civil War Units included: First Cherokee Mounted Rifles (First Arkansas
Cherokee); First Cherokee Mounted Volunteer (Watie's Regiment, Cherokee
Mounted Volunteers); Second Regiment, Cherokee Mounted Rifles,
Arkansas;
First Regiment, Cherokee Mounted Riflemen; First Squadron, Cherokee
Mounted
Volunteers (Holt's Squadron); Second Cherokee Mounted Volunteers
(Second
Regiment, Cherokee Mounted Rifles or Riflemen); and Cherokee Regiment
(Special
Service).

Cherokee
units fought at Wilson Creek
(1861) and Pea Ridge (1862). There were few large battles in Oklahoma,
but these were brutal. In November 1861, a combined force of 1,400
Cherokee,
Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Texas cavalry commanded by Colonel Douglas
Cooper
attacked a refugee column of 4,000 pronoun Creek trying to reach safety
in Kansas. Over 700 refugees were killed during the three day battle
before
reason took hold. After two assaults against the Creek, the Cherokee
refused
to participate in a third and withdrew. Meanwhile the Cherokee
allegiance
to the Confederacy faltered. Following the Confederate defeat at Pea
Ridge,
John Ross switched sides to the Union. Actually Ross allowed himself to
be captured in 1862 and spent the rest of the war in Philadelphia. John
Drew's Mounted Rifle regiment also deserted and was reorganized as a
regiment
in the Union army, but other Cherokee units under Stand Watie remained
loyal to the Confederacy.

The
fighting in Oklahoma degenerated
into the same vicious guerilla warfare that prevailed among the white
settlers
of Kansas and Missouri. Stand Watie, who became a Confederate general,
was a leader of the Treaty Party and personally hated John Ross. After
Ross switched in 1862 and went east, Stand Watie was elected principal
chief of the Cherokee Nation in August. He captured the Cherokee
capital
at Tahlequah and ordered Ross' home burned. The fighting produced
hatreds
that, added to the earlier differences, endured long after the war was
over. Many Oklahoma Indians fled north to escape the fighting. Kansas
eventually
had more than 7,000 refugees from the Indian Territory which it could
not
house or feed. Many froze to death or starved. Heavily involved in the
fighting throughout the war, the Cherokee Nation lost more than 1/3 of
its population. No state, north or south, even came close to this. On
June
23, 1865, Stand Watie was the last Confederate general to surrender his
command to the United States.

Afterwards,
the victorious federal government
remembered the services of General Stand Watie to the Confederacy. It
also
remembered the 1861 vote by the Cherokee legislature to secede from the
United States. These provided the excuse to invalidate all previous
treaties
between the Cherokee and United States. John Ross died in 1866, and in
new treaties imposed in 1866 and 1868, large sections of Cherokee lands
were taken for railroad construction, white settlement (1889), or the
relocation
of other tribes. The Cherokee Nation never recovered to the prosperity
it had enjoyed before the Civil War. As railroads were built across
Cherokee
lands, outlaws discovered that the Indian territory, especially the
Cherokee
Nation, was a sanctuary from federal and state laws. Impoverished by
the
war, the Cherokee also began to lease lands to white tenant farmers. By
1880, whites outnumbered the Indians in the Indian Territory.

Dawes
Commission

In
1885 a well intentioned, but ill-informed,
Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts decided that holding of land in
common
was delaying the progress of Indians towards "civilization." Forming an
alliance with western Congressmen who wish to exploit Indian treaty
lands,
he secured passage of the General Allotment (Dawes) Act in 1887 which
ultimately
cost Native Americans 2/3 of their remaining land base. The Five
Civilized
Tribes of Oklahoma were exempt from allotment, but came under
tremendous
pressure to accept it. Until the 1880s, cattle from the Chisholm and
Texas
trails routinely grazed on the lands of the Cherokee Outlet before
going
to the Kansas railheads. The Cherokee earned a good income from this
enterprise
until it was halted without explanation by the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs
in 1890. It should also be noted that the Oklahoma Territory was
organized
that same year from the western half of the Indian Territory, and there
may have been some connection! After the Cherokee were forced to sell,
the land was made available for white settlement.

The
Dawes commission attempted to get
the Five Tribes to accept allotment in 1893, but they refused. This led
to the passage of the Curtis Act (1895) which dissolved tribal
governments
and forced allotment during 1901. Grafting (swindles) of Indian lands
became
a massive and unofficially sanctioned form of theft in Oklahoma. Of the
original seven million acres granted the Cherokee in the New Echota
Treaty,
the Cherokee Nation kept less than 1/3 of 1 percent. As compensation,
the
Cherokee became citizens in 1901 and were finally allowed to vote. An
attempt
by the Five Tribes to form their own state of Sequoyah in eastern
Oklahoma
failed in 1905, and the Cherokee Nation was officially dissolved on
March
3, 1906. The following year Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state.
The
present government of the Cherokee Nation was formed in 1948 after
passage
of the Wheeler-Howard Indian Reorganization Act (1934). In 1961 the
Cherokee
Nation was awarded $15,000,000 by the U.S. Claims Commission for lands
of the Cherokee Outlet.